IR 8.03 now beta testing

[mathdon]

IR 8.03 Release Candidate posted

I have now posted IR 8.03 RC. This Release Candidate incorporates the change discussed above with Rob, but much more important than that, it looks as if Dave Reed (3FG) has got the final bugs out of the new library routines for the Delcom chip. It should now work in both 32-bit and 64-bit systems with JP1 remotes that have any of the available sizes (1K, 2K or 4K) of EEPROM. Note that 64-bit systems require the WinUSB driver but on 32-bit systems it works with either the Delcom or WinUSB drivers. My congratulations and thanks to Dave for all his hard work.
______________
Graham

[3FG]

A point of clarification regarding the Delcom JP1 interface:
IR 8.03RC will work with Delcom drivers on a 32 bit system that has a UHCI USB host controller. If the computer uses a OHCI host controller, then probably the WinUSB driver is required with either 32 bit or 64 bit operating systems.

Computers which have worked satisfactorily with the Delcom driver using previous versions of IR will continue to work.

[The Robman]

Graham, I just did some testing with the new Pronto vs. UEI learned formats, I wanted to see what would happen if I pasted code in using the wrong format.

First, I pasted in some Pronto code with the UEI radio button selected. I got an error message as expected and it left the pop-up screen active, which is great because it let me change the radio button to Pronto and the new code was accepted.

Next, I pasted in some UEI code with the Pronto radio button selected. This time I got an error message but the pop-up screen vanished, so I didn't have the chance to correct it.

Would it be possible to make the second scenario act the same as the first? If would be great if the pop-up was still active so all I had to do was change the radio button in order to have the code be accepted?

[mathdon]

Rob, I spent a lot of time making the radio buttons work properly, but didn't think too much about the OK button. Your prompting made me realise that there were improvements that needed to be made with both the inconsistent settings (button not matching the data format).

Please try IR 8.03 Release Candidate 2. I've tested it with various deliberate mistakes but I'm sure there are more!
________________
Graham

[The Robman]

Brilliant, I tested it and it works great, thanks Graham. I threw a number of different Pronto codes at it and it decoded them all effortlessly.

Am I right in assuming that this only supports the "raw format" Pronto codes at this point (ie, Pronto strings that begin with "0000")? It would be great if, for a future release, it was able to handle some of the other Pronto formats because I don't believe there are any tools out there at the moment that do handle the other formats. If something were developed to handle those formats, it would be great if it was a DLL or something like that so that it could also be used by IRTool, which also can't handle them at present.

If you do decide to take a look at the other Pronto formats at some point, here's some documentation:

http://www.hifi-remote.com/infrared/prontoirformats.pdf
http://www.hifi-remote.com/infrared/Pronto.pdf

[mathdon]

Am I right in assuming that this only supports the "raw format" Pronto codes at this point (ie, Pronto strings that begin with "0000")?

Almost right. It also supports "0100" codes, which is the raw format for unmodulated signals, i.e. zero frequency.

I've thought of looking into other Pronto formats. No promises, but it is certainly in my mind. I already have documentation on them that you pointed me to when I first investigated Pronto imports. It would certainly be in a DLL, it would be in ExchangeIR.dll as that is where the current translation routines are. I believe I have set the support in IR.exe in such a way that I wouldn't need to change it, I would only need to add the additional code into ExchangeIR.dll.
_____________
Graham

[The Robman]

Good to hear, well RC2 certainly gets my vote for release.

[damir]

There are problems with large fonts in Windows XP.

Screenshots:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... le_id=8434

[mathdon]

There are problems with large fonts in Windows XP.

Screenshots:
http://www.hifi-remote.com/forums/dload ... le_id=8434

To the best of my knowledge these are nothing to do with version 8.03. I have never changed anything that would affect the appearance in large fonts, so I suspect they go back several years at least.

I would prefer to release IR 8.03 as it is, as I see nothing other than minor issues of not-quite-perfect visual appearance. But I would like the views of those in higher authority, please.
_____________
Graham

[The Robman]

I'm still OK with it being released.

Damir, did the large font issue just start with IR 8.03 or does it also happen with 8.02 or any of the earlier versions?

I will see if I can test the font issue on my Vista box when I get home. I can't change the font size on my work PC.

[damir]

It happens with the earlier versions as well.

[The Robman]

So the font thing is an existing issue, good to hear. So Graham, let's make this puppy official, this is a great release for IR.

[mathdon]

Importing Pronto into IR 8.03 RC2

As posted, IR 8.03 RC2 has the ability to import upgrades in Pronto format, but only in the raw formats that begin with 0000 or 0100. This restriction is not built into IR.exe, it is a limitation of ExchangeIR.dll v0.07 that is included in the package.

I have now posted ExchangeIR.dll 0.08 Beta. If you replace v0.07 with this in the IR.exe package then it should be able to import all the Pronto formats documented in:

http://www.hifi-remote.com/infrared/prontoirformats.pdf

In addition to the raw ones, these are the predefined formats that begin with any of 5000, 5001, 6000, 7000, 9000, 9001 and 900A-900E. I say "should be able to" as at present I have no "real" test data. The testing has been done only with data that I have put together by hand for this purpose. I would welcome any feedback from anyone able to test it with real data, especially the 7000 range as this is the most difficult to make correctly by hand.

For anyone who wants to test this without real Pronto data, here are some common protocols represented as Pronto predefined formats:

RC5: 5000 0000 0000 0001 00dd 00ff
RC6: 6000 0000 0000 0001 00dd 00ff
NEC1: 900A 0000 0000 0001 ddss ffxx
NEC2: 900B 0000 0000 0001 ddss ffxx

The lower case letters are dummies, to be replaced as follows:

dd = device code (00-FF except for RC5, where range is 00-1F)
ss = subdevice code (00-FF)
ff = OBC (00-FF except for RC5, where range is 00-7F)
xx = complement of ff.

These values are hexadecimal but not transformed in any other way, as such things as lsb versus msb are handled by the Pronto format. Example:

900a 0000 0000 0001 1125 05fa

is NEC1, device 17, subdevice 37, OBC 5.

Note that this new ExchangeIR version will not work with IRScope 2.01 Beta 4. I will post a new beta shortly for IRScope that gives it, too, the ability to import these predefined Pronto formats.
_________________
Graham

[The Robman]

I found some samples of real non-raw Pronto code and spot checked them. They all decode using v0.08 except for the 8000 and 9001 formats, which do not decode.

Note: Unlike the various other non-0000 formats, the 8000 format does not contain details about the signal itself. Instead, it is a reference to a UEI database entry. The encoded information will give you the UEI setup code and a reference to a button. To get the actual protocol, device code and OBC you would have to know the details of the setup code that it refers to, so it's probably not practical to attempt to decode the 8000 format.

Samples of Pronto formats from Remote Central

7000 format
Grundig DTV Receivers
7000 007c 0000 0008 000c 000e 0010 0003 0004 0003 0004 001c 0004 0003 0003 0003 0003 0003 0003 0000 - Off
7000 007c 0000 0008 000c 000e 0010 0003 0004 0003 0004 001c 0003 0004 0004 0003 0003 0003 0003 0000 - On

Thomson DTT Receivers
7000 007d 0000 0008 000c 000e 0010 0003 0004 0003 0004 001c 0004 0003 0003 0003 0003 0003 0003 0001 - Off
7000 007c 0000 0008 000c 000e 0010 0003 0004 0003 0004 001c 0003 0004 0004 0003 0003 0003 0003 0000 - On

8000 format
Toshiba 44NHM84 TV
8000 0000 0002 0000 000d 0038 0002 0000 - On
8000 0000 0002 0000 000d 0038 0001 0000 - Off

9000 format
AVT-5744 4X4 Matrix switcher
9000 006D 0000 0002 0020 00DF 0016 00E9 - "4/4"
9000 006D 0000 0002 0020 00DF 001B 00E4 - "3/3"
9000 006D 0000 0002 0020 00DF 000F 00F0 - "1/1"
9000 006D 0000 0002 0020 00DF 001F 00E0 - "1/4"

9001 format
Volume Memory presets for a Yamaha RX-V2500
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 0075
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 0076
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 0077
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 0078
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 0079
9001 0000 0000 0001 007e 007a

http://www.hifi-remote.com/infrared/prontoirformats.pdf
9001 0000 0000 0001 0000 0000
9001 0000 0000 0001 00ff 00ff

[mathdon]

Many thanks, Rob. I haven't attempted the 8000 format through lack of info on the tables. The 9001 format is uncertain in the E Oulianov document, he says that it is absent in his source of tables and he hopes it is correct. I'll look into it based on the real examples you have provided and see if I can tell what is wrong.
_________________
Graham